Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 14.djvu/186

178 of perfect charity, although I should not be able to answer. I have too many vexations by my station and the impertinence of people, to be able to bear the mortification of not hearing from a very few distant friends that are left; and, considering how time and fortune have ordered matters, I have hardly one friend left but yourself. What Horace says, Singula de nobis anni prædantur, I feel every month, at farthest; and by this computation, if I hold out two years, I shall think it a miracle. My comfort is, you began to distinguish so confounded early, that your acquaintance with distinguished men of all kinds was almost as ancient as mine. I mean Wycherly, Rowe, Prior, Congreve, Addison, Parnell, &c. and in spite of your heart, you have owned me a contemporary. Not to mention lords Oxford, Bolingbroke, Harcourt, Peterborow: In short, I was the other day recollecting twenty-seven great ministers, or men of wit and learning, who are all dead, and all of my acquaintance, within twenty years past; neither have I the grace to be sorry, that the present times are drawn to the dregs, as well as my own life. May my friends be happy in this and a better life, but I value not what becomes of posterity, when I consider from what monsters they are to spring. My lord Orrery writes to you to morrow, and you see I send this under his cover, or at least franked by him. He has 30000l. a year about Cork, and the neighbourhood, and has more than three years rent unpaid; this is our condition in these blessed times. I writ to your neighbour about a month ago, and subscribed my name: I fear he has not received my letter, and wish you would ask him; but perhaps he is still a rambling; for we hear of Rh